a thought on digital photography

This is not intended to in any way shape or form to start a digital

vs film war. I shoot film right now, and am "playing around" with my

son's digital camera. I expect I will shoot both in the future. I'm

of the mind that film does certain things well, and digital does

certain things well. Use them for what they do well.

 

Now.........the actual discussion.

 

Perhaps, digital photography is one of those things that come along

and changes society. What do I mean by that? I mean a technology,

be it mechanical, electric, or electronic, that not only added value

to human life, made things easier for us, did things faster for us,

but was also one of those items that actually changed the way we

worked, played, socialized, etc. And it also opened the doors,

technologically and socially, for future products, system,

breakthroughs to come to pass.

 

The last "great" device of this nature I believe was the telephone.

Think about it. It changed everything from a handwritten note or

actually travelling to meet the person...........into instant

socialization with your relative, friend, lover, etc. It took

socializing from only paper and pen, or travel.............to the

electical medium.

 

Is digital photography of this same nature? It takes all

that "material" aspect of photography away. No film, no chemicals,

no paper.........just machines that handle electrons. You NEVER ever

have to have a digital picture in a physical form. EVER!!! You can,

if you want to, but it can stay as electrons forever.

 

Think about how that would change the entire world. An Art medium

that has no physical form. How would that change how we interact

with each other? I honestly dont know. This thought is rather new

to me actually.........just kinda popped in my head while reading the

latest digital vs film debate.

 

 

So, in case you got lost in all that.......the discussion is

centerred around....."An Art medium that has no physical form. How

would that change how we interact with each other?"

I promise I will not start a digital vs film war.

 

I remember for a number of years now that books were supposed to be replaced by electrons. No longer would we need to waste precious space in our homes for bookshelves because our entire libraries would now be replaced by a computer 'tablet' and CD's would contain all of the books. We wouldn't need to trudge down to the bookstore or library because we would just download them off of sites.

 

It sounds very utopian but it never happened and probably never will. The problem? People like books. They like holding them, flipping through them and just plain looking at them.

 

I see the same thing with pictures. It's great that you can look at a monitor but most people share their photographs with friends and family. It's an interactive social event to pass around the photos. Try doing that with a monitor.

 

I believe that while photography has been made more convenient by the use of digital cameras, people are still sending them in for printing rather than doing it themselves or just looking at them on a monitor. It's no different than your typical 1 hour developing, which in my opinion was the real landmark in photography for the masses.

<i>It's great that you can look at a monitor but most people share their photographs with friends and family. It's an interactive social event to pass around the photos. Try doing that with a monitor. </i><p>

 

Andy, you might see this differently if you had children. I watch my son and his friends, they crowd around the monitor to look at photos. They look at photos as much on a digital camera LCD or camera phone as they do on a computer screen. I have yet to see them pass prints around or ask for prints. They do like yearbooks and the like because they collect the photos together in one place.<p>

 

So maybe it's a generational thing, it will have the impact that Tom mentions, but it won't be this year or the next, it will be somewhere down the road.

Thomas,

 

I don't think digital cameras represent any great watershed event; it's digital technology itself that is the great sea-change in our civilization. Digital capture is just a streamlining of the digitization process.

 

There has been an active and fascinating discussion about the ideas you've touched on above, i.e. the concept of art (and most everything else) being freed from its physical manifestations and the consequences for our civilization. I've lost track of the dialogue in recent years, but back when my wife worked at Wired Magazine, and later when I was studying related stuff at Harvard, I remember being just totally exhilerated by all the good writing that's out there on this topic. It really is the philosophical frontier of our age.

Andy: that's funny, because digital transmission of pictures (whether they were originally shot on film or digital) is what allows me to easily send photos to my family (I'm in the US, they're in Europe) and have them print them there. Without that I'd either have to send film (out of the question) or to have the prints done here and then sent over (cost and annoyance of shipping, hassle of having to go to the lab over and over to get contact sheets then reprints)...

 

Thomas: See above. To me, the final product of photography is still a print. Digital makes it easier to transmit an intermediate form that allows to faithfully re-create the physical product remotely. The analogy with the telephone only works to an extent, if you imagine that a digital picture never ever gets printed (and even then they have a form of persistence that doesn't exist for voice in phone system)m but digital photography goes much further.

Jeff, I must be on the level of your son - I shoot 99% digital now, and I've yet to print even one of my digital files(!) - I am content with viewing/storing them on my PC. OK, I am not a <i>professional photographer</i> (in anticipation of another regular commentator) and don't sell my images; if I did, I'd need to supply them in a form which the market prefers, which I guess would be as a print, to hold in the hand or hang on the wall.

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To the question asked. I wouldn't claim to see the future, but I could believe it if digital photography <i>does</i> change the world in the way that you suggest Thomas. This is not to say that it will take over, but - as it's own kind of medium or means of expression - it could develop such a life of its own.

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I should add here Andy that I also prefer to read books (or hardcopies) rather than straight off the screen, but for me images are not the same...

B. Gates said that the web "...would transform our culture as dramatically as Gutenberg's press.?

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I wonder what state the web will be in 550 years.

Ed - I guess from the way you write your question that you believe that the web will be defunct in 550 years - am I right?<br>

Perhaps those who chiselled words into stone tablets thought the same about those who decided to use paper instead (surely stone will outlast paper any day?!)...

Neil, no, I don?t know what happened with my question mark it was meant for the second line.

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Actually I think the opposite of what (or how) your reading my words and that the web given the same amount of time?well it?ll probably be a pretty amazing thing. Twenty years from now will be unbelievable.

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I see myself in a similar situation as T.S. currently shooting film only but definitely open too and realizing that soon I?ll be shooting digital or both.

look at my last post, question marks everywhere...

Jeff I'm not trying to make sweeping generalities and of course there are always going to be exceptions (ie as with children) but I believe in human nature and for me the book analogy will probably hold true for photography. I know some only look at their images on a screen and now that I have a good scanner the majority of my photos never see paper. However the ones that I really care about do get printed. They get passed around during critique sessions and I look at them in different light. I put them on my walls in different places. Photographs allow you to retain mobility. A monitor keeps you chained to one spot.

Concerning the assertion that photography has now become "An Art medium that has no physical form." and "How would that change how we interact with each other?"

 

For photographers such as myself, it has resulted in the globalization of the artistic community in which we can participate.

What once might be characterized as the "New York School" of photography is now a global community, and participation is open to anyone who can upload images. Personally I find this a much more attractive situation than what would have been the situation in the past, where one would assemble a portfolio of images, hopefully convince a gallery in NYC to exhibit them, and then hoping that the art critics in the cosmopolitan media would find merit in some aspect of your work.

"Perhaps, digital photography is one of those things that come along and changes society."

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<i>Everything</i> changes society but not necessarily heads or hearts. Technology is about what is in our Hands. Recent evidence suggests our Heads/Hearts are still in the Cave with the sabre tooth tigers and the mastedons. Don't know what will change that...probably not electrons. But we can hope.</p>

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Tom...sure you don't live in "cali"? :)</p>

<i>A monitor keeps you chained to one spot.</i><p>

 

I think that's why they pass around the camera and look at the tiny screen. And they ask to have a photo they like emailed, not printed. While to us, looking at something on a tiny screen seems limiting, to them, it's freedom. The analogy may be television - it was a whole lot smaller than a movie screen, but it didn't take long for most people to use the television far more than the movie theater.<p>

 

I think Neil has a point - it's not just kids. I only print things now that will go up on a wall or get sent to someone, otherwise, it's straight to the digital file. There's no need to print things that won't get shown as a print because I can look at them on the screen. Before digital technology, I could only look at and show prints.<p>

 

Broadening this, there is a valid argument that digital technology has changed a lot of things, but there are specific ways in which it has changed technology.<p>

 

Some people are bothered by the inherent transient nature of digital images, but this is just the latest development in a long process. There was a time when important facts were carved on stone, where they could last indefinitely, and when important paintings were on the insides of tombs, where they could also last indefinitely. The march of time has seen the march of impermanence.

Good lord. Digital photography is one very minor aspect of information technology. The much wider world of IT altogether might some day approach 10% the impact of television or the automobile. But I doubt it.

Speaking of Mr. Gates. He has flat screen panels on the walls of his Seattle Xanadu where he supposedly displays some of the great art from previous centuries. For me a digital Mona Lisa just doesn't cut it. Having said that, I think there is little doubt that going forward digital display and capture will be what people use and expect.

 

Is it nice to hold a print in one's hand? Yes? But as Jeff said, kids are growing up in a digital world. They do not have the same set of expectations many of us have. If you grow up looking at the TV set or a computer screen to see the family picnic then that experience molds your expectations going forward.

 

Nothing stands still. The telephone was probably the greatest invention next to steam power of the 19th century. The 20th century brought movies and the "talkies" which many thought was a passing fad. My mother who grew up listening to radio thinks television was the greatest invention of the 20th century. Most of us would likely say it's the Internet. Perhaps "greatest" isn't the right word. Maybe "impactful" is better.

 

Yes film will last. Who knows for how long. But digital technologies will dominate for the near term (how long is that?). And clearly people are embracing it. Now digital photo technology is entering cell phones. And many said, who cares? Well, it's impacting the sale of "traditional" digital cameras. As the technology inexorably advances, there can be no doubt that wireless photo devices will dominate the consumer marketplace.

 

Things change...

 

To answer the question. An art medium that has no physical presence will in my view change less how people create than it will change how work is displayed/seen. For me. the great thing is it is democratizing Art, making it more accessible through the net. The fact that I can now capture an image and send it to a friend's phone or computer is revolutionary and very cool.

 

Things change...

some interesting thoughts, observances so far. First though, maybe a little more explaination why I think the digital camera might stand out amongst all the other digital and electronic things. The telephone...where we had electricity and the telegraph system before it...brought a thing into being that replicated one of our senses. It allowed the sense of hearing to occur over vast distances, and it put that device in the hands of every person at a relatively inexpensive outlay of money. But even more important........Instantly! Or using the neighbors phone, or public phones.......regardless, every person could afford to use it.......and did.

 

Now, digital cameras, namely the point and shoots, has taken another sense, vision, and allowed it to be seen over great distances. Relatively cheaply....and also instantly. Yes, computers and cell phones had to come first, just like electricity and the telegraph lines for telephones. But it was the telephone that was easiest for the normal human to use............morse code sucks ;o) Yes, we had digital before the camera..........and had to use film scanners to make film or prints into digital.......as many are finding out, not the easiest thing in the world to do correctly. Or cheaply. But today you can get a 3 mg cam, fully auto, for less than $200, and even feed it directly to your email in the proper jpeg size.......or as Kodak calls it "easy share".....from cam to email with one button (i beleive....never did it, just read it)

 

anyhow thats why I think the digital cam is the new telephone......duplicates one of our senses and sends it to another human instantly. I think those two items are the keys to this "watershed event" mentioned above. Which, btw, Beau..........do you have some links available to Harvard or Wired Mag that elaborates on this concept you mentioned.

 

Also, the kids hovered around the monitor, never wanting prints......now that you mention it, I too have seen that with kids. Actually not even kids........my son is in his early 20's and him and his friends do that.........although my daughter is in her early 30's and she seems to prefer the print............hmmmmmmmm.

 

The artist "New York School" now being a global artist thing.........yeah, thats another major change in social behaviour. Artists have always been known for that "coffee house" attitude.....now its apparently, for Bill, on the web.

 

Andy........interesting about the electronic book though...must be that us humans dont find the computer better than the paper for reading the printed word. Where I work, a lot of things were traditionally done on paper. With the computer, the idea was that we could, and did, keep everything electronic. Don't ya know though, that everybody still prints the damn things out. Oh, a quick one page thing gets read on the screen, but a book, tech manual, etc..............printed. Yet these same people, at work, will pass pics around all day long via the electronic medium, never printing them out. But then there is no "sense" that goes along with the printed word, is there? I mean, its transformed into thoughts regardless of how we bring it in. Maybe it really does depend, this watershed event, on replicating a human sense directly, and increasing its distance of communicating.....hmmmmmmm. Just some thoughts that occurred in reading the above comments.

"An Art medium that has no physical form."

 

I think music would be your best comparison. With print photography, the medium IS the art. With music and digital photography, the medium is just a storage system that holds a set of "instructions" or "data" that is used by a device to reproduce the original worksor art.

 

Be it a series of grooves in an LP, or bits on a hard drive, they are combined together to form a uniquely recognizable result. A gestalt.

<i>For me a digital Mona Lisa just doesn't cut it.</i><p>The real one isn't exactly the entertainment experience of a lifetime either. But I know what you mean.

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When the rest of the world was inventing the Web, Bill Gates and his company were instead busily creating the Bob user interface. So it's great that he's evolved into a great futuristic thinker. Maybe some day his company will bring out a successful product that isn't just a better-financed version of something already done by somebody else.

There's a reason why the electronic book hasn't worked, and why this may not be the best analogy. There are ergonomic issues about books that so far have not been resolved by the electronic books. Most people (probably in exces of 99.9999%) don't lie in bed looking at prints, or hold prints above their morning bowl of cereal. They do read books in these kinds of situations.

 

The technology, in both size, feel, battery life, and viewability has worked against the electronic book being a viable medium. However, new technology is starting to come out that may change that. Low power "electronic paper," flexible viewing screens that are light, have long battery life, and excellent readability in a variety of conditions, is now working in prototypes, and could be in products in several years. This may make electronic books as pervasive as digital-only photos.

 

I don't know what my son's generation will think about saving images. It may never be that important to them - images will be as transient as a nice dinner with friends. And while we may think that's "wrong," who can say that this isn't the way that they want to live their lives.

I think the whole problem (or at least the major problem) with the idea that any information technology is going to change our lives for the better is that implicit assumption that we are suffering from a lack of information and communication as it is. Hardly. We're deluged with it.

 

By the way, digital photography does have a physical form. No information can exist without physical form. The difference with digital is that you need a device to help you interpret the form, which is a weakness (e.g. digital books).

There is an art medium not tied to physical form thousands years before digital photography: story telling. The same story can be told by different people, in different languages, read from different books; but it is the same story.

<i>"Beau... do you have some links available to Harvard or Wired Mag that elaborates on this concept you mentioned?"</i>

 

<p>Thomas, wow, where to begin? I wish I had time to dig up some of the great articles on this. Try doing a "google" on John Perry Barlow or Nicholas Negroponte. They were two of the early "visionaries" in the early 90's who described, so far with great accuracy, what was going to happen to our world as a result of digital technology. Here are some samples that I really quickly located:

 

<p>http://web.media.mit.edu/~nicholas/Wired/

 

<p>http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.03/economy.ideas.html

 

<p>Here is the site of the Berkman Center at Harvard, which I was somewhat involved in while studying there:

 

<p>http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/home/

i think its just technology in motion, like anything else. email is probably more revolutionary than a digital camera, as far as communication. or instant messaging, or cell phones, those dreadful cell phones. :D

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everyone these days seem to be tethered to some sort of device, in one way or another.

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remember that icp thing we went to a long time back, with that device someone would wear on their shoulders, had cams all over it, and people behind could see eyeballs....heh....not to mention how many of the exhibits there were on tv's.....its a multimedia revolution!

Men continuesly seeks for universe control (shame this word has some bad emotions attatched to it). Technology is what men develops from stone age to archive this control over the physical universe.

First stage of tech dev. was focused on Matter and Space control, second stage on Energy; now we focus on Time.

IT advances are focused directed to time (comunication).

Photography advanced within this paradigm (time), the digi cam is just a 'natural' migration needed for the 'new' system layout of comunications.

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<i>An Art medium that has no physical form. How would that change how we interact with each other?</i>

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As pointed before here, even in digital you have a physical form. I think this question fits better to the invention of language:

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which physical form a poem has?

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IMO digital wont replace analog models as printed books or photography: why do we have a body (analog and digi system) for?

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For sure we have a new medium, but still is only an emulation of existing ones.